what I’m wearing and my poll results

Just a quickie post today to show you what I’m wearing on my nails.  But also to give you a little update on that poll I put together last week.

I kinda wish I was still wearing those peacock nails from my last post.  They were epic.  But the base coat I was wearing made the design peel right off.  Boo freakin hoo!  I will have to fill you in on this lamo calcium-building base coat soon.  But anyway, since the work week is in full effect now… I went with a quick mani sans nailart.  It’s a nice purple holo that I swatched only once here and have been wanting to wear again.  It’s called Aurora by AVON and it’s from their special Cosmic Collection.  I have been obsessing over every AVON polish I’ve gotten recently.  Their formulas are great, and the brushes?  I dunno what it is about their brushes, but I love them, especially when it comes to painting my dominant hand.  My AVON manis come out looking so clean and professional, even on my “Cinderella hand”.

Originally I wore two coats of Aurora and got perfect coverage.  It dried so fast that I was able to go to bed afterwards without seche vite on top, and still, I got no sheet marks in the morning!  That is unheard of for me.  I think I must lay directly on top of my hands or something because sleepy Jacqui can be a real manicure wrecker!  That’s why I cannot live without seche vite.  But this quickie dry polish was a nice surprise.  AND THEN…. then today I broke two nails!  Whhaaa?  Yup, two.  I think that calcium builder I’ve been using really sucks. So I had to file my nails down, to get them to all match.  But I’m okay with it, they don’t look too short.  So after filing them down I added another coat of Aurora to nicen it up.  So these photos are: one crappy base coat, and three coats of AVON Aurora, and no topcoat.  But really, you should only need two coats of this one.

Now, on to my poll results.  Remember last week I asked your opinion on changing my font?  Well, the results are in and it’s been a really close call between B and C!  Initially after posting this poll I got cold feet about changing my font… I thought I was really gonna miss my little hearts from my current Craftynail logo.  But you know what, my readers have spoken and it’s time for change!  I’m going balls to the wall and taking it one step further too!  I’m changing the whole look of my blog!  I’m keeping the shabby chic appearance, but I’m doing a full re-vamp.  So stay tuned.  Within the next week I should be unveiling my new and improved Craftynail blog !

And I just wanted to say thanks for all your support.  I love you guys. 😀

 

2 Bobbie swatches

Today I have two Bobbie polishes for you which are made in the Philippines.  The Nailinator sent quite a few to me in our swap, and so far I love them all (see the other one here).  These are holographic, but not extreme linear-rainbow kinda holos.  The effect is much more subtle, but still epically beautiful.  I think they’re perfect for everyday wear.

Weng Weng is a grey holo with a purple duochrome effect.  The formula is great.  Shown here is a basecoat, and two coats of Weng Weng.  Don’t you think the flash of violet makes it unique?  I don’t own any polishes quite like this one.

Next up is Margarita.  Maybe it’s named after a woman?  Because the name makes me think yellow/green, not pink.

This one is much more sheer.  This is one base coat plus four coats of Margarita and I still have some visible nail line.  It didn’t seem to bother me though since the formula is very easy to apply and I really like the brush.  I enjoyed wearing this polish more than I thought I would.  The pink shade has such a romantic, soft, feminine feel to it.

After a day I added some gold studs to my Margarita mani.  I love how the pink has a really warm tone to it and I think the gold studs really play off that.  Here’s a shot with some photo editing, for fun. I also tested the waters with a new watermark.  Not sure if I’m ready to make the switch though!  Let’s see what my poll results say about my prospective fonts! What if I change my mind and decide to stick with my Katy Berry heart font?  Will you still love me?  Because I think I’m getting cold feet!

Bird cage nails for #NAILLINKUP

Hey ladies!!  Here are my BIRD themed nails for our April Nail Art Ideas Linkup!

It took me around two hrs just to get the pics ready to post.  Ughh- I have been having mega computer problems with the new desktop I bought.  I purposely got windows 7 on it, even though at the time win8 was brand new.  Well, that pc would not connect to the internet.  It was so frustrating!!!  We tried every troubleshooting thing possible, and even shipped the pc back to HP twice, yup, TWICE, and they kept sending it back unfixed.  WTF!  After arguing with them for months we finally got a newer desktop the other day, which works!!!!!!!!!  Holy crap.  The internet. Thank God.  I feel bad, because I know they will probably re-furbish it and sell it to some other poor soul who will never be able to get it connected to the web either.  Regardless, I’m glad that lemon is out of our hands.  But now, I’m having a hell of a time adjusting to windows 8 on the new machine.   Navigation is weird and I hate the whole app thing.  Many programs try to open as apps and the functionality is limited and sucky.  I know what I want to do, but don’t know what to click to make it happen.  I had to watch a damn youtube video the other nite just to figure out how to shut the desktop down!  Hopefully I can get the hang of it.  If you have any windows 8 tips, please let me know!

Back to the nail art….I’m wearing a grey holo as my base color.  It’s called Weng Weng from Bobbie brand- I will have to post swatches soon since it really deserves it’s own 5 minutes of fame.  Then I made some diy birdcage decals using white konad polish and BM-407 stamping plate. I usually make my decals on plastic baggies, but this time I left the stamp right on my MoYou stamper, then colored the white birdcage in with a detail brush and Essie Butler Please.  Then I covered the stamp with seche vite.  It dried pretty quick, then I peeled it off the stamper and applied it to my grey nail.  Awesome.  I will definitely be doing this again.  I feel a tutorial coming on.  Some of my other nails are decorated with some blue rhinestones and one of my favorite glitter toppers- Lights Of Emerald City by OPI.

You should try a bird themed manicure too!  Here are the other nails from the april linkup–

7th – 13th April : Birds

 

ILNP swatches – Grape Alicious and Molly

Today I’ve got two I LOVE NAIL POLISH shades for you.  I won these from Brijits Digits giveaway.  I’ve never tried ILNP before, so I was thrilled to get my paws on these!

First up is Grape Alicious…

Grape Alicious is a purple holo. I used two coats here along with basecoat and topcoat too.  The holo didn’t seem too strong for me in Grape Alicious.  But I love this shade!  It’s a purple that leans more towards blue than red, which is my fave kinda purple.  Dark blue-ish purples look so rich and regal to me.  So I love this one.

Next up is Molly…

Molly is a magenta holo.  Shown here is a basecoat, two coats of Molly, and topcoat.  This shade is so pigmented and the formula was great.  So easy to apply.  I wasn’t expecting this, but Molly has tiny flecks of sparkle in it!  On the downside, it chipped pretty bad within 24hrs.

I’m so happy to have some ILNP added to my small stash of indies.  Do you have any of these??

Sugar skulls and alien heads!

Wait, sugar skulls and alien heads? YUP!  These kinds of noggins don’t normally go together… but these two designs were on the same bundle monster stamping plate… so why not?

These images you see on my nails are actually little diy decals that I made with nail polish.  They are so cute I’m glad I finally got a chance to wear them!  But it’s been two weeks since I made them (original post here)… and they got a little brittle.  Plus, my house is cold and that seems to make them even more brittle.   So I tried to warm them up before I applied them to make them more pliable.  I have one of those neck warmer things that you microwave, so I set my decals on that for a minute so they’d be more bendy.  That actually did help in getting them to fit the curve of my nail better. Oh, and two coats of seche topcoat helped too. 🙂  I also added studs at the end by sticking them into my topcoat while it dried.  The studs really made the mani come together.  Before studs- meh.  After studs- wicked!

Also, I don’t want to neglect mentioning my awesome base colors.  Under my decals I’m wearing two different AVON cosmic collection nail polishes.  The blue is called Celestial and the yellow is called Starlight and they’re both scattered holos.  I swatched these cosmics in the past (here) and I needed three coats.  But now that my nails are shorter, they only needed two coats.  Or maybe the polish thickened a little over time?  I dunno, but it works for me!

I hope you like my nails! Talk to ya soon!  Next time you hear from me we’ll be talking about the April prompts for the #NAILLINKUP. 😀

 

L.A. Girl Purple Effect

I recently ordered this purple scattered holo… and now my L.A. Girl collection is complete! Buauuuahahahaaa!

I know I’ve posted about these L.A. Girl holos a gazillion times (well maybe not a whole gazillion)… but this 3D Effects collection is great!  I had every color except this one.  It’s called Purple Effect but I recently picked it up from Cherry Culture.  🙂 Isn’t it beautiful??

Nail polish like this makes me forget about nail art.  Who needs it?  I got purple magic on my nails!

 

Zoya Dream Dupe (and a discount code)

I recently received the 6 piece Zoya Zenith collection from nailpolishcanada.com. One of the clear winners of the bunch is the scattered dark blue scattered holo called Dream.  It’s stunning, but yet it kind of reminds me of another polish that I’ve had for about a year now.   Could Zoya Dream be a dupe of last year’s L.A. Girl Brilliant Blue (old swatch found here)? Let’s look!

indoor lighting

Can you tell the difference?  Honestly, I cannot.  I asked my boyfriend (he has a trained artist’s eye) and he thought that Zoya looked more green in the bottle, while the L.A. Girl looked more purple.  But once I got them on the nail I could not tell them apart.  He agreed.

I’m wearing no base coat, two coats of blue, and no topcoat.  I’ve seen other bloggers say they needed three coats of Zoya Dream, but I definitely only needed two.  Same with the L.A. Girl-two coats does the trick.  The formulas on both are very similar, but if I had to pick my favorite I’d choose the L.A. Girl.  But I’m partial to bigger brushes, so I found application easier with that one.

outdoors in natural light

If you’re interested, Dream can be found here on the Zoya website.  Meanwhile, the old L.A. Girl 3D Effects collection is still available at cherryculture.com.  Cherry Culture has low prices on these and China Glaze.  Their shipping is a lil bit of a mystery though since I don’t think they emailed me when my order was on it’s way.  But I’ve placed some big orders and they are always accurate, timely, and are packed up really well.  So just have faith.  Check it out! They have a coupon code (JTV14) for 20% off your entire cherry culture order through Feb 6 2014.  Brilliant Blue is on sale right now too so after the discount code it’s only $1.92  !  I’m tempted to buy a back-up bottle of the Black Illusion since I love it so much!  Feb 6th is almost here so hurry up.. and happy shopping!

UPDATE on Feb 6th, 2014—   I just bought more L.A. Girls online woot woot !  Ground shipping within the U.S. was $6.85…  but be aware that international shipping is pricey on cherryculture.com!